Information sharing heroes

For the team behind the Telegram channel PH Coronavirus Updates, up-to-date, relevant and factual information are essential in dealing with the ongoing pandemic. From a small initiative for family and friends, the group has since become the go-to source for information about COVID-19.

Providing Filipinos with the latest information about the COVID-19 pandemic is not an easy task. But for our team of five members, who are behind the Telegram channel PH Coronavirus Updates, it is a responsibility that we have wholeheartedly accepted in order to serve the people in these trying times.

Each week, our group convenes through an online group chat to decide what and how to communicate health information to the channel’s followers. The decisions we make are crucial as these reach thousands of Filipinos nationwide.

From the latest case updates to significant policies, the channel connects Filipinos with valuable health information that they need to help them respond to the pandemic.

Our team, however, recounts that the vision did not start with this grand aim. It started as a venue for our family and friends who were getting a lot of inaccurate information from social media. 

We noticed that little was known about the virus, so we were concerned that misinformation would be rampant. We also noted how some social media platforms failed to fact check many of the unverified information. It was, therefore, a responsibility that we put for ourselves, especially as more people joined the channel and gave us their trust.

The Telegram channel, when it was launched in January, only had a handful of followers mainly composed of relatives and friends. By July, the group’s membership had boomed to over 130,000.

Our team attributes the growth to word of mouth as more Filipinos clamor for credible information about the pandemic. In March, we saw that the channel became a hot topic on Twitter, with a number of prominent figures promoting our group.

For us, the increase in the number of followers was an indicator of trust from the general public. It was essential that we continue with our role as providers of information.

In selecting the platform, various considerations have to be taken into account. We settled on Telegram, which was effectively used by the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong to securely communicate during protests.

Telegram was a convenient platform for information dissemination because it highlights the importance of sharing of content as fast as possible.

Too much information is a legitimate concern. We noticed that language has to be straightforward so as not to cause unnecessary stress. Some updates are also posted without any alerts to minimize anxiety to followers.

Generally, the content has to be very upfront, although one of our members may once in a while explain details for those that need context and additional information.

We also write posts that have a maximum of three sentences. We do not want the channel to be a wall of texts. 

Individually, the members of our group are interested in local and geopolitics and would prefer to maintain non-affiliation with any political color. Recognizing that some content may be interpreted as political, we try to remain neutral in our posts as much as possible. 

In some cases, we needed to meet and decide on how to word our posts to avoid giving an impression of political bias or being drawn to a politician. One of our founders reminded us that the country’s political environment is already too polarized, and we would rather not add fuel to the fire anymore.

Aside from information related to COVID-19, we also post other information that we deem relevant for Filipinos, such as those concerning natural disasters and other developments. 

With thousands of members anticipating credible, up-to-date information, we recognize that maintaining the channel is not an easy task. For instance, during the first few months of the pandemic, the lack of a centralized government information dissemination system made it difficult to vet what is being reported. We meet online and decide on what information matters to the audience. We use information from the Department of Health, the IATF, and from media sources. 

Misinformation also remains a major concern, especially on social media. To ensure that the information we share is factual, we had to triangulate the information that we got before a member could post it.

We were cautious in sharing some information because several government officials gave conflicting accounts. We wanted to avoid sharing anything that could be confusing to our audience. 

The team does not want to add more confusion to their audience. Even if there is no codified rulebook that provides them information on what gets to be published, they know that their posts are checked for veracity by the members themselves. 

Misinformation also remains a major concern, especially on social media. To ensure that the information we share is factual, we had to triangulate the information that we got before a member could post it. As social scientists, we had to vet the data that we share to ensure consistency and transparency. We only share information that we have checked from the national government and our media sources. At the end of the day, the gut feel of a well-informed social scientist becomes a push factor to post information on the channel. 

We ask: Do the news agencies post the topic? Do these posts make sense to us? We also fact check the news.

On selecting the content, we also follow public sentiments on social media platforms such as Twitter in order to see how our followers react to the topic and to gauge their interest level. The channel has also become a platform to promote COVID-related campaigns and causes by different organizations.

Recently, we also added polls on the channel to help us gauge the perspectives of the members. Adding opinion polls will give us a feel of what our followers are thinking about the on-goings in the country. 

Six months into the initiative, we, the PH Coronavirus Updates, through our Telegram channel, remain committed to sharing relevant information to Filipinos. For us, arming the general public with factual information and quality content would enable the Philippines to survive this pandemic. The team learned that the public is looking for trustworthy and dependable information so they need to post the truth. 

We hope that more people would be inspired to take action and help in addressing the current crisis. Indeed, now — more than ever — is the right time to be of service to our countrymen. 

 

Edited by Janvic Mateo


Read more from Chapter 6


Decode

Chapter 6

Decode

Connected in times of uncertainty

From supporting business recovery to connecting people to reliable information, social media company Facebook has taken on the challenge to help communities around the world during the pandemic.

2020 is quite a different year for us at Facebook and certainly, the world. It started with natural calamities — from the bushfire in Australia, to earthquakes in Puerto Rico and several countries across the globe. 

Closer to home, Taal Volcano erupted. We moved fast and activated Disaster Maps to support the Philippine Red Cross so they can send help where it’s most needed, and Facebook’s Crisis Response Hub, so people can mark themselves safe and check in on their loved ones, or request for help from nearby communities.

At around the same time, we were seeing reports of growing concern around COVID-19. We took precautions and shifted to mandatory work from home for those in the Manila office in March. We all had to quickly adapt and ensure we continued to do our part to enable physical distancing. 

I know this was a hard time for many businesses, particularly small and micro businesses, but I’m truly inspired by the resiliency of the Filipino entrepreneurial spirit. This is particularly true of how quickly businesses small and large, pivoted to online channels. 

To share a personal story — my wife was very hesitant to go to the grocery and we started to think about how we’d get basic necessities. Over the first few days though, she quickly discovered all these great small businesses that enabled us to get what we needed — from a rice seller on Instagram (@healthygrains.ph) to someone who’d deliver herbs and spices (@reqadophspicestore), and even things we never used to buy, like sourdough bread from @doughbyangelica. 

A cut-and-paste of work to home life is not sustainable. We are telling our managers to be flexible when it comes to non-traditional working hours, and to embrace cameos from the occasional toddler or family pet on video conference calls.

No matter what you do in an organization, the challenges of working remotely during this pandemic go far beyond adapting to a desk outside of your normal office. We are all grappling with how to get through the day while juggling conference calls, children, pets, eldery parents, and the unrelenting news cycle about the pandemic. 

There is no one playbook for what is happening in the world right now, but we are doing our best to share resources and key learnings over the last couple of months with the goal of helping businesses around the world set up their employees for success as we continue on this new normal of working remotely for the foreseeable future. 

Our response to the pandemic, as a company, has been focused on three areas: helping people stay connected; ensuring everyone has access to accurate information and removing harmful content; and supporting economic recovery, especially for small businesses.

A cut-and-paste of work to home life is not sustainable. We are telling our managers to be flexible when it comes to non-traditional working hours, and to embrace cameos from the occasional toddler or family pet on video conference calls. Employees around the world are working to juggle new challenges at home and at work and fierce support from leadership makes all the difference. 

To help companies learn from what we now know — and from the mistakes we’ve made — we created a Remote Work Toolkit so that employees and teams can continue to stay connected, feel supported, and do important work wherever they happen to be working from — their home office, couch, or dining table.   

Our response to the pandemic, as a company, has been focused on three areas: helping people stay connected; ensuring everyone has access to accurate information and removing harmful content; and supporting economic recovery, especially for small businesses. 

Helping people stay connected

We know that people rely on social apps to connect with the people and things that are most important to them. In many of the places hardest hit by the virus, messaging has increased in volume by more than 50 percent, and voice and video calling have more than doubled across Messenger and WhatsApp.

At the end of Q1, more than 800 million daily active users have been engaging with livestreams — from workout classes to concerts, and more.

In the Philippines, we’ve seen how efforts like Maestro Ryan Cayabyab’s Bayanihan Musikahan brought together people who are not just passionate about OPM but also about wanting to make a difference in the lives of some of the most vulnerable communities in this pandemic. Before the nightly charity online concert’s run ended, they raised donations worth over P122 million in cash and in kind.

For the first time ever, more than three billion people are actively using Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp or Messenger each month. That includes 2.6 billion people using Facebook alone, and more than 2.3 billion people using at least one of our services every day. We are working hard to ensure our services are stable and reliable. 

Connecting people to reliable information 

Ever since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 as a global public health emergency, we’ve been working to connect people to accurate information across our family of apps and taking aggressive steps to stop misinformation and harmful content from spreading.

Connecting people to credible information is only half the challenge. Stopping the spread of misinformation and harmful content about COVID-19 on our apps is also critically important.

In the Philippines, we launched the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Information Center at the top of people’s News Feed. It leads to the latest stats and updates from the Department of Health, WHO and the United Nations Children’s Fund, with links to their verified Facebook pages. 

On Messenger, people can message KIRA, the Department of Health’s KontraCOVID Chatbot, to get quick responses to common questions about the virus and get information on how to protect themselves and loved ones against COVID-19. 

Connecting people to credible information is only half the challenge. Stopping the spread of misinformation and harmful content about COVID-19 on our apps is also critically important. 

This is why we have updated our Community Standards to protect people from harmful content and new types of abuse related to the pandemic including content that has the potential to contribute to real-world harm. We work with over 60 fact-checking organizations that review and rate content in more than 50 languages around the world. 

Additionally, we also started showing messages in News Feed to people who have liked, reacted, or commented on harmful misinformation about COVID-19 that we have since removed. 

Supporting business recovery

What started out as a global health crisis has ballooned to become an economic crisis. Businesses big and small are suffering including over 140 million small businesses globally who use our platform. 

And so, we are continuously working to find ways to make it easier for people to connect, explore, and engage in different forms of commerce across our family of apps.

This global pandemic has changed and will continue to change the face of commerce as we know it. People who have never shopped online before finally got to experience firsthand the ease and efficiency of online transactions.

And while some people may return to their old shopping habits as restrictions ease, a good number of these newly converted online shoppers are likely to continue to make purchases from the safety of home. 

As businesses accelerate their shift to online connection and commerce, we are focused on helping our community navigate the challenges of this pivot and providing tools and resources so they can adapt to the changing circumstances and stay informed.

The rise of mobile use, online messaging and the increasing popularity of video — be it Stories, IGTV, Facebook Watch or Facebook Live — are social trends that we see influencing how we do business, from e-commerce to conversational commerce. We want to equip people with the knowledge and skills to keep up over the next few years.

Earlier in July, we launched “Boost with Facebook,” a virtual webinar series that aims to educate and support businesses as they recover and build business resilience, so they’re prepared for crisis or any kind of business disruption. 

The ongoing series can be viewed every Wednesday in the Facebook for Business Page and features inspiring small business owners who have pivoted and continue to move forward.

This is an extraordinarily challenging time for many reasons, and there is a clear disruption to business as usual. 

While we continue to be faced with uncertainties on how long we’ll be sheltering in place and keeping physical distance, we’ll continue working with our partners in the Philippines to keep our community safe and informed, and enabling support for communities and businesses on our platform.

 

Edited by Janvic Mateo

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